


Twas the Night Before Christmas

by interrobangme



Category: Alien: Isolation (Video Game)
Genre: Christmas fic, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 01:47:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5520872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interrobangme/pseuds/interrobangme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amanda Ripley, noted Grinch, wants to give Samuels a real Christmas. </p>
<p>OR</p>
<p>Amanda Ripley vs. Christmas lights</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twas the Night Before Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Because every fandom needs holiday fic. Not beta'd, except by my overweight cat, who refused to get off my chest while I tried to read this over. Please enjoy this while I drink too much wine to get through Christmas Eve dinner. 
> 
> Happy holidays!

Amanda swayed through the apartment door, leaning to keep the stack of packages she held from falling over. She kicked the door closed behind her and shuffled until she reached the kitchen. 

After dumping the bags and boxes onto the counter, she took a moment to plan. The roast would need to be put in the oven first. She dug a large pan out of the cabinet and consulted the recipe. She didn’t have half the seasonings on the ingredients list.

Damnit. 

She knew she shouldn’t have waited until the last minute. She hadn’t meant to, but after spending the majority of her life trying to avoid the holiday altogether, it had snuck up on her this year. She was so used to skipping the day entirely, staying inside and tinkering with various projects until the world’s Christmas fever passed.

At least, until Samuels came into her life. He had a way of making her want to see the world through his eyes. She came home earlier that week to find him on the couch, leaning towards their TV, watching some ridiculously old Christmas movie. He was smiling in that lopsided way that made her heart flip, and she knew her days as a Grinch were numbered.

He quickly turned the movie off and went to make dinner, but she had already decided to give him an authentic Christmas experience, despite the cost to her shriveled heart.

So here she was, beating a block of rosemary-covered meat with a kitchen hammer ( _“Meat tenderizer, Amanda, really,”_ she could practically hear him correct her). She hoped it would be ready soon, so Samuels could come home to the smell of it. Even if he didn’t exactly “eat,” he still took great pleasure in the act of cooking and preparing meals, though Amanda couldn’t fathom why as she heaved the pan into the oven, cranking the heat.

She looked at the clock. She probably had another hour or so before he came home. She’d sent him out to get a bunch of Christmas movies, making sure to include a few more obscure titles on the list so it would take him a while to find them. 

She unboxed the colorful mass of decorations she bought earlier and ignored her guilt at sending him on a wild goose chase on Christmas Eve. It was worth it for the look he’d have on his face when he came home to a real Christmas.

She reached into one bag and pulled out a glob of tinsel, already twisted and tangled around a little metal tree. She rolled up her sleeves and prepared to do battle with Christmas.

***

“They didn’t have _Home Alone 3_ anywhere,” Samuels called from the doorway, juggling his keys and bags, “but everyone I asked told me not to bother. It’s supposed to be terrib—”

He stopped talking when he looked up, facing off against a cockeyed snowman about half his height, standing at the end of the hallway. It had a somewhat crunchy look to it, like it had been slapped together out of styrofoam balls. He took a step towards the thing, its nose ( _Is that an actual carrot? We don’t even eat carrots_ ) jutting at him accusingly. One droopy eye stared into his very soul.

“Amanda?” he called, frowning at the disapproving snowman.

He was answered by a shrill beeping. He dropped his bags and hurried to the kitchen. Samuels blinked against the gray smoke clouding the room. He coughed as he smelled something burning.

He reached up for the smoke detector on the ceiling, his long arm reaching it with ease. He was glad for the moment that Amanda hadn’t come in; she always got so cross when she couldn’t reach the alarm (“That’s what the step stool is for, darling.” “I don’t need a step stool, Samuels! I can reach it just fine.”).

“Amanda, do you mind if I take this out?” he asked, pulling on the nearest oven mitts absent-mindedly. He reached for the oven and stared at his own mitt-clad hands like they’d sprouted out of nowhere. They were red and white, covered in little candy canes and gingerbread men.

“Damn,” Amanda answered at last. “Hold on, I’ll get it, don’t— _damnit_!” she yelled. “Ow, come the fuck on, no.”

Samuels ran into the living room and found Amanda tangled in countless strings of blinking Christmas lights. 

She stood in the middle of the room, a colorful beacon. Her scowl was directed at the strands of lights twisted around her, but there were far more offensive sights throughout the room. A small, metal tree sat hunched on the coffee table, tipped to one side with gaudy red and green ornaments and puffs of tinsel. Fuzzy stockings coated in glitter hung from the entertainment center, swollen with cracked and broken ornaments scooped up in a hurry. Patchy white splotches dotted the room like a disease, beside cans of “Snow at Home” on the floor. 

It looked, Samuels thought, like Santa Clause had projectile-vomited all over the apartment.

“Are we being invaded by elves in the near future?” he asked, approaching with caution as Amanda grappled with the knotted lights, her movements growing more furious by the moment.

“Agh!” she shouted, the small screwdriver in her hand sparking with electricity. “If I could just get them to blink in alternating colors, I could stop getting fucking shocked for five seconds and deal with the gingerbread house.”

Samuels took off the oven mitts and pulled them onto her hands.

“Hey!” she protested as her screwdriver clattered to the floor. 

He held her face in his hands and said, “Let’s get you out of these Christmas lights before you’re fried.”

“There’s not enough voltage in these stupid things to—ah!” she swatted at a few bulbs that had met the bare skin of her forearm, their pulsing colors burning.

Samuels carefully plucked the lights away from her skin, holding them at an angle so she could step out of the fray. She huffed but ducked under them all the same, spinning a few times as he slowly unwound the knot of twinkly lights.

She swiped at her eyes, burning as smoke from the kitchen curled into the living room.

“Oh, damnit, the roast!” she ran for the kitchen, Samuels at her heels. She threw open the oven door and nearly plunged her hands in before looking around for oven mitts. Samuels held out the red and white pair. 

She pulled out the pan, the roast a blackened mound, prickly with spikes of charred rosemary. 

“No, no, noooo,” she cried, dropping the pan onto the stove. “This isn’t right, none of this is coming out right.”

She turned to Samuels, her eyes wild, her hair sticking up every which way, “I just.” 

She leaned against the wall and slid to the floor, knocking over a long string covered in popcorn. “Can’t.” 

She raised her mitt-clad hands to the heavens, “CHRISTMAS!” 

She buried her face in her mitts. Samuels bent down on one knee and carefully pulled her head into his chest. He rubbed circles on her back and settled his chin on the top of her head. 

He eyed a crumpled gingerbread house peeking out of the garbage as if it was going to attack, and held Amanda tighter.

After a moment, he broke the silence to ask, “Amanda, would you mind filling me in on whatever is happening here? I haven’t been party to many Christmases in my life, but from what I’ve gleaned, they don’t usually involve mental breakdowns and electrocution by twinkly lights.”

He felt a hot puff of breath against his chest as she laughed, and he drew back to look at her. 

“That’s just it though,” she said, her eyes shining, “they do for me.”

“I don’t understand,” Samuels said, tugging her gently upward and leading her to the couch in the living room, fanning the smoke out of their path with his free arm. “Why would you go to all this trouble if it drives you mad?”

Amanda plopped down on the couch, but yelped and promptly jumped back up. She picked up a pointy reindeer figurine from the couch and tossed it on the floor, then sat back down. Samuels pushed a bag to the side, ignoring the jingling it emitted to focus on Amanda.

“I saw you watching that Christmas movie the other day, and I just thought... I don’t know. I’ve never been big on the holidays. Even as a kid, I hated going to see relatives, or open presents in front of people. It always felt like so much pressure. Everybody looking at me, in a stupid scratchy dress,” she tried to wipe some red and green glitter off her pants, but gave up. 

“The only times I had any fun on Christmas was when my mom canceled our plans and just built a giant pillow fort. She’d make cocoa and we could watch all the movies I wanted. No one was making me dress up or talk to people I barely knew or anything. Those were the only good Christmases I had. And then... she was gone.” Samuels took her hand and waited for her to continue.

“I didn’t even ask for anything on Christmas after she left. I knew Santa was a bust, and my relatives certainly couldn’t bring her home. But every year, I still found myself waiting for her to come through the door, scoop me up, and ask which movie I wanted to watch first.” She leaned her head on Samuels’ shoulder.

“Oh, Amanda,” he said softly. “I’m so sorry.”

“Living with my relatives, I had to dress up for Christmas again, and make awkward conversation with family I barely knew. Eventually I got old enough to live on my own, and I stayed in with work, or drew up plans for something I’d been wanting to build, and that’s pretty much the best I’ve done with Christmas.” She picked at some glue under her fingernails. “Until now, obviously. I just wanted to give you a real Christmas, but I’m not sure I know how.”

Samuels rubbed at his eyes, and decided his pre-set ocular moisture levels needed adjusting. He turned to her. “Amanda, that’s the best gift anyone’s ever given me.”

Amanda snorted and gestured at the room. “Yeah, a burned-up roast, broken ornaments, a demented snowman—who could beat that, right? Best presents ever.”

“You misunderstand,” Samuels said, pushing a strand of hair out of her face. “No one’s ever tried to share Christmas with me, at all.”

She looked up at him, her face red. She reached her arms around his neck and hugged him. 

"I’m sorry, Chris. I wish I could have done better for you.”

“This is perfect, darling.” She laughed, but he said more firmly, “Truly. I love every last shattered ornament and tangle of tinsel. This is the best Christmas I ever could have asked for.” He smiled. “It even comes with a story: ‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except Amanda Ripley stabbing at the Christmas lights.’”

She laughed, and hit him lightly on the chest.

“Although,” he continued, “there is one bit of tradition I had hoped to take part in.”

“What? What is it?” Amanda asked quickly. “Is it a tree? I got us a tree, it’s just…” she waved a hand at the tilted metal structure on the coffee table, its steely branches inflamed with tinsel. 

Samuels got up from the couch, went to his bags in the hallway, and returned with his hands behind his back.

“No, I’m afraid it’s too small to be a tree.” He walked towards her and kneeled in front of the couch. He pulled a sprig of green tied with a bow from behind his back and held it over their heads.

Amanda couldn’t help but laugh in his face. He gave in to the smile he’d been fighting as he approached her.

“Seriously? Mistletoe? That’s all you want to do for Christmas.”

“This is my only holiday requirement.”

Amanda rolled her eyes but leaned in anyways, and met his lips in a kiss. 

When they pulled apart, Samuels said, “There. Now my Christmas Cheer Meter is full. That should suffice until the next major holiday.”

“Oh, good,” Amanda answered, leaning her forehead against his and draping her arms over his shoulders. “Then you can help me clean up.”

***

The next morning, Amanda hardly remembered it was Christmas at all. The detritus of the night before had been merrily thrown in the trash. She rolled over in bed and reached out for Samuels, only to be met with a cold, empty space.

She got up and pulled on her robe, the cold making her shiver. “Samuels?”

She stepped out into the living room and saw an enormous pillow fort. Blankets were draped all over the furniture, cascading over every surface, each connecting with the next, supported by massive stacks of pillows. A steaming mug of cocoa sat in the middle of a nest of blankets on the floor, the TV screen a few feet in front of it.

“I was wondering when you’d get up,” Samuels said, popping his head out from beneath the mountain of blankets. He pulled out a stack of movies and began shuffling through them. “Which would you like to watch first?”

Amanda swallowed past the lump in her throat. This must have taken all morning. How could she even begin to express what this meant to her?

Samuels interrupted her thoughts. “I know _Die Hard_ isn’t strictly a Christmas movie, but it does take place during—”

“ _Yes_ ,” she answered, pouring all the love and gratitude she could into the word. Samuels looked up at her and smiled. 

“’Yippe ki yay,’ then. And merry Christmas, Amanda.”

She smiled back at him for a moment, then ran and jumped full-speed into the pile of blankets.


End file.
